Tom Deschenes Information

Game Designer
Portland, ME

Biography:
Tom Deschenes is the creator and designer of Quest for the Antidote, Upper Deck's smash-hit board game that was released on the 2017 summer convention scene. Debuting at Origins Game Fair in Columbus, Ohio, and then featured at San Diego Comic Con and GenCon (the world's largest board-gaming convention with 208,000 attendees at Lucas Oil Stadium), Quest for the Antidote quickly became one of the most in-demand games around the globe. Quest for the Antidote was designated an "Amazon's Choice Item" just before the 2017 holiday shopping season, and it has been featured on pop-culture websites like ICV2.com and ComicBookMovie.com, along with local media outlets like WCSH 6, Downeast Magazine, The Portland Press Herald, Maine Public Radio, and 207. Quest for the Antidote has quickly become one of Upper Deck's fastest-selling and most popular board games across North America, Europe, Asia, and Australia, and it continuously sold out at Wal-Mart, Amazon, and other major retailers through the end of 2017. Upper Deck, known for its popular board and card games for Marvel, Disney, Universal Studios, and 20th Century Fox properties, is excited to have Quest for the Antidote as their first major "original" IP that they hope to grow into the next major pop-culture brand.

A resident of Portland, Maine, Tom is a long-time gamer and has been a self-identified nerd since middle school. He is a mega-fan of Star Wars, The Lord of the Rings, WWE wrestling, and the Halloween movie franchise, and his biggest "fan-boy" moments have included meeting Sir Patrick Stewart and attending a WrestleMania. Tom is also a major bookworm, a former high school English teacher, and a graduate of Harvard University. Tom's research on Shakespeare during graduate school won him Harvard's Dean's Prize for Outstanding Master's Thesis in Liberal Arts, and he is currently in discussions with a major global television company to adapt some of his scholarly work into documentaries for cable television. Tom is also currently developing multiple new board game designs, including a possible sequel to Quest for the Antidote.